The business and culture of our digital lives, from the L.A. Times

Apple's iPad 2 is in high demand in a few Asian countries this week as the Qingming festival gets underway.

In the annual tradition, ethnic Chinese families burn paper replicas of items their dead relatives would enjoy in the afterlife, such as designer purses, plush furniture, cars and clothes.

This year, young Chinese are bringing paper replicas of Apple's iPad 2 into the mix, according to a video report from Reuters. (The device isn't yet on sale in much of Asia.)

However, the push for consumer electronics -- including smartphones and TVs -- isn't exactly embraced by older Chinese, one of whom said in the video below that many relatives wouldn't even know how to use an iPad because the gadgets came out after they died.

In the meantime, many shops that sell paper replicas for the festival can't keep up with demand for the replicas -- mirroring Apple's own problems with keeping the real thing in stock in many of its stores, Reuters said.